The women disrupting covert power

Board of Tax chairman Teresa Dyson’s way of getting heard is to tread softly, but she says that may be a ­personality rather than just a gender trait.
Photo: Rob Homer

by
Nassim Khadem

Look outside the nation’s boardrooms, and the face of covert power and influence is now, often, a woman.

On major economic policies, from ­attacking Treasurer
Joe Hockey
’s budget cuts, to advocating a rise in the goods and services tax, leaders of the nation’s key ­business, union and social groups are women singing from the same song sheet.

“There is a feminised attribute of seeking common ground and collaboration – of course it’s not unique to women and many men do it as well – but for us there’s a natural desire to have that," Australian Council of Social Services chief executive
Cassandra Goldie
says. It was at the 2011 tax forum, when Goldie, Business Council of Australia chief
Jennifer Westacott
, Australian ­Council of Trade Unions boss
Ged Kearney
, and Reserve Bank board member (then ­Australian Industry Group chief)
Heather Ridout
, casually met at the Parliament House coffee shop, Aussies.

Here were four capable women, in ­high-profile positions typically held by men, shaking up the norms of what values ­advocacy groups should stand for.

It wasn’t that business and unions had never come to the table together before, or that if the same group had been a bunch of men, they wouldn’t have talked over coffee. It was that the conversations took place at a pivotal moment in the gender debate – shortly after Australia got its first female prime minister
Julia Gillard
(even if by ­controversy), and just months before the national debate about gender ­politics ignited.

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“It was striking to me that there were four women in those roles," Goldie says. “[About a year] later, we heard Alan Jones on radio talking about ‘women destroying the joint’. We did smile."

Men still dominate business and politics, but women are moving from being the voice of gender equality – answering the usual question of, “should we or shouldn’t we have quotas" – to increasingly, being heard on crucial policies such as tax reform, productivity, workplace laws and climate change.

The alliances, especially between Goldie and Westacott, have stayed strong, and a host of other women have risen to the top across sectors such as community services, superannuation, tax, and construction.

The lone voice

It is hard to objectively measure whether being female helps or hinders their ­influence. It may be a bit of both, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive
Kate Carnell says
.

The former Australian Food and Grocery Council chief executive and ACT chief ­minister has spent most of her working life leading. She bought her first pharmacy at 25 and soon after was the first female to become a national vice-president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. She became leader of the ACT Liberal Party in 1993. In March 1995, she became the first Liberal woman to be elected as chief ­minister in political history.

Carnell was no typical Liberal MP – here was a female ­pushing for policies such as heroin trials to stop people with addictions dying, and legalised surrogacy, long before other states jumped on the bandwagon. “The real ­positive is that you’re obvious," Carnell says. “The ­downside is there’s still a defined line for women, often between being competent and outspoken to being too pushy; viewed as going into areas you shouldn’t go. For men, it’s not the same. They’re seen as being ambitious."

The ACTU’s Kearney says she’s not sure being female is an advantage, but being a woman with a name like Ged definitely is. People expect a man to show up to meetings, and in walks Ged, a former nurse with a reassuring smile.

Kearney has held other advocacy roles including as federal secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation. She took over as ACTU president in July 2010, becoming the third woman to hold the position following the departure of
Sharan Burrow
. The ACTU’s management is still largely male, although Kearney predicts in the next decade we will see more women move up the ranks – it’s something she’s ­personally working towards.

Her experience of being in an all-male environment is no different to that faced by many other women, whereby “often you’re overlooked". It’s not outright discrimination, but a constant battle to have your viewpoint heard.

“You will say something and it’s not noticed," she says. “Five minutes later a man says it and it’s agreed, ‘isn’t that a good idea’. People don’t expect you to push hard on issues and when I do that there’s genuine surprise, and a view that ‘Oh, Ged’s being hysterical again’. . . But now I’ve started to call men on it. I’ll say, ‘I said that five minutes ago, thanks for repeating what I said."

Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia chief executive
Pauline Vamos
has also learnt to stand firm. “You need to be able to sell your story and idea, and you must be bold in doing so," she says. Vamos has been chief of ASFA since 2007. She’s served in the financial services industry for more than 25 years, recently helping lead debates on MySuper reforms and the financial systems inquiry. Yet she also, at times, struggles to be heard in a room full of men.

“I realised I could no longer just rely on my verbal voice being heard so I make sure I have something prepared before ­meetings," she says.

“I say, ‘I am so glad you agree with me, ­gentlemen; indeed, I have something that builds on that idea’. I put them on the spot. You’d be surprised how quickly they change their view."

Broderick, a former lawyer with a ­computer science degree, has been a key advocate for national paid parental leave scheme (first introduced under Gillard) and domestic ­violence reform. She’s highlighted the appalling treatment of women in the defence force and led changes to ASX ­corporate governance principles to increase the number of women in leadership.

Being a woman in an advocacy role is frightening and thrilling. “You’re not part of the dominant group, so it’s an uncomfortable place to be," Broderick says. “The upside; there’s a real hunger for a diverse range of views and particularly for women’s voices."

Green Building Council of Australia boss
Romilly Madew
has had to learn to be tough in the male-dominated building industry. She previously worked as executive director of the Property Council’s ACT branch. She currently sits on the board of the World Green Building Council. Her biggest achievement was working with Labor’s
Anthony Albanese
when he was infrastructure minister, to deliver a national urban planning policy. She’s now pressing the current government to address climate change, which she says is the most pressing economic issue facing the nation.The reason she has sat on various government boards in the ACT is a direct result of the government there having quotas for women.

She recalls an incident back when she was working at the Property Council. She was made to feel like the most important person in the room, thanks to another ­leading woman, Labor’s
Penny Wong
.

“They had set the room up with a ­rectangle table, and Penny, who was climate change minister at the time, had told the organisers to seat me in the middle, directly opposite her.

“When she’d make a comment for ­feedback, she would say, ‘Romilly, what are your thoughts?’. Other women like
Lucy Turnbull
have also been supportive – they’re aware of the unconscious bias that exists."

Lin Hatfield Dodds is the head of ­UnitingCare Australia, one of the largest non-government providers of community services. She says in most walks of life – especially in an economic sense – being female is a disadvantage. Hatfield Dodds, who was also a member of the ACT Community Inclusion Board and a former president of ACOSS, has consistently lobbied to create better outcomes for the nation’s poorest. But she doesn’t view her gender as a hindrance, and in fact says it allows her to get away with mischief, although she won’t say exactly what. “I’ll do something and then seek forgiveness," she says. “I’ve never seen guys get away with what I do."

No need to be superwoman

Apart from having to devise tactics to have their voices heard, women often find it hard to move into advocacy roles for the very same reason that females find it hard to rise to the top of companies and boards – they leave work to have children.

All the women interviewed said there is no possibility that women can have it all. No one of them claims to be superwoman. They have made sacrifices, and had to rethink the way they work, in order to have a family.

Carnell, who now has two grown-up ­children, says when they were young she skipped business breakfasts. “It’s about managing the guilt," she says. “You can’t do it all, you can’t be the perfect mum and perfect career woman."

Dyson, who has two children, now 8 and 10, says balancing work and life has been a “constant and evolving struggle". She’s ­minimised the need to travel: “I choose not to fly the night before if I can make an early morning flight." Having children has never stopped her pursuing roles. “I was made a partner [at Ashurst] whilst on maternity leave," she says. “I just personally go into things and manoeuvre them to make sure they work."

Hatfield-Dodds has two boys, now 17 and 21, but says when they were young she would leave work at 3pm two days a week. Madew, who has a 10-, 12- and 15-year-old, says she used au pairs in the early days and on school holidays takes her kids to work.

Kearney, who describes the time when here kids were young as the “dark ages", got support from family and friends.

Broderick, whose kids are now 16 and 17, says she often turns down dinner invitations to spend time with her kids.

“For me, trying to balance work and ­family isn’t the result of a single decision, it’s the cumulative impact," she says. “I could be at events every single night of the week or spending time with my family. And I can’t go around talking about the need to have work and family life balance, if I’m not living that myself."

The next generation of lobbyists

Becoming a woman of influence wasn’t a path these women envisaged. It just ­happened, partly by virtue of the strong women they are, because they had mentors, ­husbands and family that supported them, and because they happened to be at the right place at the right time.

It’s possible the next generation of female lobbyists won’t happen by accident, but by a concerted effort to help women rise up.

“I think any reporting that makes an issue visible, changes behaviour," Vamos says. “I was a senior and very capable employee when I worked at Tower Life. But the only reason I was put in the executive committee, with all the boys, was at that time they assessed the number of women they had. Once I was there, there was no way they were going to get rid of me."

It’s also possible, the next generation of men takes a different view of women, where there is no longer a conscious or even ­unconscious bias about gender, but a real desire to view women, as well as people of different ethnic backgrounds, equally.

Carnell says men in senior positions in politics and business are still largely baby boomers. “They may still have preconceived views around women, which formed around their mothers who were women who kept the home together and that was their predominant role," she says. “The men I talk to will all publicly say, ‘we need more women in senior positions’, but underpinning how they really see women is a more traditional view.I hope that the next generation will move into senior roles with women as their equals."

Goldie says in the debate on tax reform she’s still concerned the organisation is not seen as a serious player, “and we expect to be". The former lawyer, has been on numerous government advisory committees and part of major economic debates on tax including the 2011 tax forum and the former Gillard government’s national panel on economic reform and the ministerial round table on superannuation. But she says, “look at any conference on economics and tax it will be male dominated. I’ve had to pick up the phone and say, ‘I would like to be at that’. Too many female voices are not there and don’t push to be."

Hatfield-Dodd says when her boys were young she used to read them bedtime stories and insert female references where male characters were.

“The idea that men have more power than women starts from an early age, through the power of language and the power of presumption," Hatfield-Dodds says. “When my son Zac was three years old, I was reading him ‘Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick. So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick. The doctor came with HER bag and HER hat’.

“I remember Zac was sitting on the kitchen bench, and looked at me with his big blue eyes and asked, ‘Mummy, can boys be doctors?’ "